Movies for Music Lovers: 2012 Edition

Click here for the 2011 edition.

Some of these films premiered in the US in 2011, but didn't arrive in Seattle until 2012, in which case I deferred to local release dates. Some missed the city altogether, in which case I caught up via DVD. I wrote about many for Amazon, Line Out, The Seattle International Film Festival, SIFFBlog, and Video Librarian (the links lead to reviews, though Rust and Bone and Amour haven't been posted yet, since they don't open here until January). 

The Tops:
1. Patience (After Sebald) (Grant Gee)

In his haunting profile of an author's defining novel, Gee created a true work of art.

2. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr)
3. Shame (Steve McQueen)
5. Rust and Bone (Jacques Audiard)
6. The Master (P.T. Anderson)
7. Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine)
8. Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominick)
9. Hello I Must Be Going (Todd Louiso)
10. The Source (Maria Doumopolis and Jody Wille)



Runners-up:
1. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

Love the adults, couldn't stand the kids. 

2. Compliance (Craig Zobel)
3. Skyfall (Sam Mendes)
4. Bernie (Richard Linklater)
5. Amour (Michael Hanecke)
6. Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranja)

If Laura comes at the trade from a different angle, Miss Bala serves as an inside-out response to Maria Full of Grace, which also centered on a sympathetic mule (and featured a strong central performance from another virtual unknown). From start to finish, Laura is neither action heroine nor passive victim, but rather stoic survivor.

7. House of Pleasures (Bertrand Bonello)
8. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
9. Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)
10. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)



Second runners-up:
1. Tie: The Avengers (Joss Whedon) and 
Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard)
2. The Sessions (Ben Lewin)
3. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
4. Looper (Rian Johnson)

Mostly for the boy from StephenKingLand.  

5. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)
6. Flight (Robert Zemeckis)  
7. For a Good Time, Call... (Jamie Travis)
8. Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
9. Chicken with Plums (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
10. Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)

 

Also worthy of note: Anna Karenina, Before Your Eyes (Min 
Dit: The Children of Diyarbakir), Bonsái, Bullhead, Cirkus Col-
umbia, Cloud Atlas, Coriolanus, The Dark Knight Rises, The Do-
Deca-Pentathlon, Eden, Eye of the Storm, Goodbye (Bé Omid E Didar), The Hunger Games, In Darkness (W Ciemności), The Iron Lady, Policeman (Ha-shoter), Post Mortem, Rampart, Rebellion (L’Ordre et la Morale), Rent-a-Cat (Rentaneko), Roadie, Seven Psychopaths, Snowtown Murders, Sound of My Voice, The Slut, Summer Holiday (Boogie), Turn Me on Dammit! (Få Meg På, for Faen), V/H/S, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Your Sister's Sister.


 
Missed (or haven't seen yet): Arbitrage, Barbara*, Bestiaire,
Chronicle, The Color Wheel, Consuming Spirits, Damsels in Dis-
tress, The Day He Arrives (Book Chon Bang Hyang), The Deep Blue Sea, Footnote (Hearat Shulayim), Goodbye First Love (Un Amour de Jeunesse), The Grey, In Another Country (Da-reun Na-ra-e-seo), Keep the Lights On, The Kid With a Bike (Le Gamin au Vélo), Late Quartet, Les Misérables, The Loneliest Planet, Middle of Nowhere, Neighboring Sounds (O Som ao Redor), Oslo, August 31st, A Royal Affair (En Kongelig Affære), A Simple Life (Tao Jie), Sister (L'Enfant d'en Haut), Starlet, Zero Dark Thirty.

Television notables: Boardwalk Empire - Season Two, Downton Abbey - Season Two, Game Change, The Good Wife - Season Four, Revenge - Season Two, and Vegas - Season One.

* I caught a screening on Jan. 5. Adding to my Best of 2013 list.

 

They've done better: Andrea Arnold (Wuthering Heights), Bobby and Peter Farrelly (The Three Stooges), William Friedkin (Killer Joe), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained), and Woody Allen (To Rome with Love...which I enjoyed in spite of myself).

 

Top documentaries: 

Caught few of the big non-fiction films, but saw the small ones most others missed.

1. 5 Broken Cameras (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi)
2. The Chilean Building (Macarena Aguiló)
3. The Boxing Girls of Kabul (Ariel Nasr)
4. Taken by Storm: The Art of Storm Thorgerson
and Hipgnosis (Roddy Bogawa)
5. Paul Williams: I'm Still Here (Stephen Kessler)
6. Pink Ribbons, Inc. (Léa Pool)
7. Girl Model (David Redmon and Ashley Sabin)
8. Marley (Kevin Macdonald)
9. Bad Brains: A Band in DC (Benjamen Logan)
10. Chely Wright: Wish Me Away (Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf)

 

Also worthy of note: Barbershop Punk, Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, Dish: Women, Waitressing and the Art of Service, Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone, Family Portrait in Black and White, Better Than Something: Jay Reatard, Last Days Here, Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess, Made in India, Step up to the Plate, Tales of the Waria, and Winter Nomads (Hiver Nomade).

Missed (or haven't seen yet): Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Beware of Mr. Baker, Brooklyn Castle, Bully, The Central Park Five, Detropia, The Gatekeepers, The House I Live In, How to Survive a Plague, The Invisible War, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, The Queen of Versailles, Searching for Sugar Man, This Is Not a Film, and Under African Skies.

Reissues and rediscoveries: 
1. World on a Wire / Welt am Draht(Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
2. A Man Vanishes / Ningen Jôhatsu(Shohei Imamura)
3. Tie: The Connection and Ornette Made in America (Shirley Clarke)
4. Movie Orgy (Joe Dante)
5. La Vampire Nue / The Nude Vampire (Jean Rollin)

With live Demdike Stare score at this year's Decibel Festival. 

Yes, I did see: Beasts of the Southern Wild.


 
Endnote: A work in progress. More sounds and images to come.   

Read more »

Movies
for Music
Lovers:
2011
Edition


Click here
for the
2010
edition

Some of these films premiered in the US in 2010, but didn't make
their way to Seattle until this year, in which case I deferred to lo-
cal release dates. Some missed the city altogether, in which case I
caught up via DVD, Blu-ray, or download. Altogether, I saw over
250 titles, and wrote about most of them for Amazon, Siffblog,
Line Out, and Video Librarian (the links lead to my reviews).

Just as my 2011 music list revolves around post-punk, a post-
punk vibe runs through many of these films. Animals also a-
bound, as do animalistic human beings, like Ryan Gosling's
Driver with his scorpion jacket (a clue to his true nature).

The Tops:
1. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
2. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)
3. Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
4. Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki)
5. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)
6. Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
7. The Skin I Live In / La Piel Que Habito (Pedro Almodóvar)
8. Project Nim (James Marsh)
9. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt)
10. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives /
Loong Boonmee Raleuk Chat (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)



Runners-up:
1. The Descendants (Alexander Payne)
2. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)
3. A Screaming Man / Un Homme
Qui Crie (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun)
4. The Help (Tate Taylor)
5. Beginners (Mike Mills)
6. Weekend (Alexander Haigh)
7. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
8. Le Quattro Volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
9. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)
10. The Time That Remains (Elia Suleiman)



Note: I enjoyed The Help. I realize I'm supposed to hate it, but
I can't stand it when people do my thinking for me or assume that
I don't know anything about African or African American cinema.

I can like The Help and I can like A Screaming Man, too. The thing
is: Tate Taylor's mainstream movie got to me in a way Mahamat-Saleh
Haroun's art house entry didn't. Which doesn't make it the superior
picture; just one that had more personal resonance. I live for '50s-style
melodramas about ordinary women, especially those who triumph
over their small-minded oppressors, whether they're white, black, or
red-eyed space aliens. The critical opprobrium heaped on this film
carried a trace of misogyny that made me deeply uncomfortable.

Apparently, I'm not supposed to like The Artist either, in part because
Harvey Weinstein produced it. But he didn't direct it, and the story
centers on a man who refuses to compromise or to impose his will on
others--un-Harvey-like qualities. In the film, he triumphs over adver-
sity. In real life, it doesn't always work that way, but The Artist and
Hugo are movies about movies and their makers. Not their producers.



Second Runners-up:
1. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
2. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)
3. The Princess of Montpensier (Bertrand Tavernier)
4. Norwegian Wood (Tran Anh Hung)
5. Hanna (Joe Wright)
6. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)
7. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
8. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
9. The Yellow Sea (Na Hong-jin)
10. Winnie the Pooh (Don Hall and Stephen J. Anderson)

Openings: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opens at the Metro Cinemas
(and other theaters) on 1/6 and A Separation on 2/3 (venue TBA).



Worthy of note: 50/50 (Jonathan Levine), The Arbor (Clio
Barnard), Aurora (Cristi Puiu), Bellflower (Evan Glodell), Car-
ancho (Pablo Trapero), Circumstance (Maryam Keshavarz),
Contagion (Steven Soderbergh), Curling (Denis Côté), Gods / Dioses (Josué Méndez), The Guard (John Michael McDonagh),
Henry's Crime (Malcolm Venville), The Girl / Flickan (Fredrik
Edfeldt), Hideaway / Le Refuge (François Ozon), The Ides of
March (George Clooney), Kaboom (Gregg Araki), The Piano in
a Factory (Zhang Meng), Putty Hill (Matt Porterfield), The Rum Diary (Bruce Robinson), Submarine (Richard Ayoade), Toast
(S.J. Clarkson), The Tree (Julie Bertuccelli), Vampire*, Vanishing
on 7th Street (Brad Anderson), The War Horse (Steven Spielberg), Warrior (Gavin O'Connor), Win Win (Tom McCarthy), X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn), and Young Adult (Jason Reitman).

* I left out the director and don't want to reformat the whole paragraph. Vampire
is the first English-language effort from All About Lily Chou Chou's Shunji Iwai.



They've done better: A Dangerous Method (David Cron-
enberg), The Future (Miranda July), My Week with Marilyn
(Richard Curtis), The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat), Take
Shelter (Jeff Nichols), and The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick).



Top documentaries:
1. Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of
a Tribe Called Quest (Michael Rapaport)
2. How to Die in Oregon (Peter D. Richardson)
3. Tabloid (Errol Morris)
4. Page One: Inside the New York Times (Andrew Rossi)
5. Tie: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
and Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)
6. The Woodmans (C. Scott Willis)
7. Ne Chien Range (Pedro Costa)
8. Nénette (Nicolas Philibert)
9. Public Speaking (Martin Scorsese)
10. Bobby Fischer Against the World (Liz Garbus)



Worthy of note: Bill Cunningham New York (Richard Press),
Broken Doors (Goro Toshima), Color Me Obsessed (Gorman Be-
chard), Crooked Beauty (Ken Paul Rosenthal), Girls on the Wall
(Heather Ross), (POM Wonderful Presents) The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (Morgan Spurlock), Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (Stuart Schulberg), Pearl Jam Twenty (Cameron Crowe), Rachel
(Simone Bitton), Silver Girls / Frauenzimmer (Saara Alia Waas-
ner), Sin by Silence (Olivia Klaus), Still Bill (Damani Baker and
Alex Vlack), The Weird World of Blowfly (Jonathan Furmanski).



Reissues and Rediscoveries:
1. Kuroneko - The Criterion Collection (Kaneto Shindo)
2. Cronos - The Criterion Collection (Guillermo del Toro)
3. Videodrome - Criterion Collection (David Cronenberg)
4. Raging Bull - 30th Anniversary Edition (Martin Scorsese)
5. All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
6. Kes - The Criterion Collection (Ken Loach)
7. Prowler (Joseph Losey)
8. The Soft Skin (François Truffaut)
9. Four Nights with Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski)
10. Little Red Riding Hood and Other Stories (David Kaplan)



Odds and Sods: Bal /Honey (Semih Kaplanoğlu), Boardwalk
Empire - The Complete First Season, The Double Life of Véron-
ique - The Criterion Collection (Krzysztof Kieslowski), Master-
piece Classic - Downton Abbey, Hamilton (Matt Porterfield),
The Hour, Season One, and Mildred Pierce (Todd Haynes).



Missed (or haven't seen yet): 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike), A
Brighter Summer Day / Gu Ling Jie Shao Nian Sha Ren Shi Jian
(Edward Yang), The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg), Cap-
tain America (Joe Johnston), Carnage (Roman Polanski), Cedar
Rapids (Miguel Arteta), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David
Fincher), Incendies (Denis Villeneuve), The Interrupters (Steve
James), J. Edgar (Clint Eastwood), Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan),
Margin Call (J.C. Chandor), The Muppets (James Frawley), Mys-
teries of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz), Nostalgia for the Light / Nostalgia de
la Luz (Patricio Guzmán), Shame (Steve McQueen), Source Code
(Duncan Jones), Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder), Terri (Azazel Jac-
obs), Tomboy (Céline Sciamma), The Trip (Michael Winterbot-
tom), and We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay).



Note: Tomboy, which played the 2011 Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, opens at SIFF Cinema on 1/6. Certified Copy, Nostalgia for the Light, and Of Gods and Men made my 2010 "missed" list...and I still haven't caught up with any of them yet. Looking forward to it.



Yes, I did see...Bridesmaids. And I sure didn't laugh much, but I'm glad that Jill Clayburgh, perfectly cast as Kristin Wiig's mother, went out with a hit. Clayburgh's daughter (with David Rabe), Lily Rabe, who also got her start on the stage, proves her own mettle in Christopher Munch's Letters from the Big Man, an animal-oriented film almost as strange as Uncle Boonmee.



A final thought: Shame on The New Yorker's David Denby
for breaking the review embargo regarding Fincher's The Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo--but more so for his spoiler regard-
ing The Skin I Live In. And shame on his colleague, Richard
Brody, for spreading the disease by quoting from Denby's Skin
review (though I still enjoyed Brody's comments about Tom
Cruise in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol). Critics!



Endnote: A work in progress. Drive image from Collider.

Read more »

Everywhere You Go: Black Cats II






Click here
for part one





As I finally got caught up with Kaneto Shindo's Kuroneko
yesterday (at SIFF Cinema through Thurs., 1/27), this seem-
ed like a good time to recognize more black cats. Instead of
videos, here are the photos and panels that caught my eye.











Black cats are a stylist's best friend (white will do in a
pinch). Socks doesn't wake up for less than $10,000 a day.











Felix is a foot fetishist.


















Mark Twain was a feline fancier and the web offers several pictures
of the author with tabby kittens (one of whom looks a little irritated).
His daughter, Jean, used her Brownie to capture this fine fellow.


















Everyone knows about Catwoman (soon to be played by Anne Hathaway), but fewer are likely to know about Felicia Hardy, AKA The Black Cat, who appears to share a little DNA with Socks above.
















Even Wonder Woman finds them intimidating (actually, this superheroine is her similarly-garbed lookalike, Phantom Lady).


















One of the best things ever. Better even than this Béla Tarr t-shirt.



Endnote: Click here for "The Quintessential Black Cat."
Images from The Cat Network, VisualizeUs, We Shall March,
Spiderfan.org, postmodernbarney ("The Mystery of the Black
Cat"), and Boing Boing ("Cat Flag" created by Art Yucko).

Read more »

Best DVDs of 2010: Art House & International



Here's the
text I wrote
for this Am-
azon list
(it doesn't
appear on
the site).
Since I
compiled it in October, I only included the releases that were available at
the time. Note that it's separate from my favorite films list, which con-
sists exclusively of titles released in 2010, whether theatrically or on DVD.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

The finest art house DVDs offer something for most
tastes, from pointed melodramas to star-crossed love
affairs. If laughs were in short supply, powerful per-
formances and intriguing imagery ruled the day.

1. THE WHITE RIBBON

After his unnecessary English-language overhaul of
Funny Games, Austria’s Michael Haneke took on
the roots of fascism in this beautifully-shot melo-
drama about a small town rotting from the inside.



2. SUMMER HOURS

There are no heroes or villains in the upper-class
family at the heart of Olivier Assayas's quietly
moving film, just a mother and her children trying
to do right by each other in the face of mortality.

3. A PROPHET

Jacques Audiard injects new life into the prison
drama by tracking the rise of a French-Arab man
who scales the ladder from convict to kingpin. Com-
parisons to The Godfather were not misplaced.

4. BRIGHT STAR

Jane Campion’s painterly portrait of the brief
relationship between poet John Keats and Fan-
ny Brawne brings young love to life in all its agon-
y and glory. Her finest feature since The Piano.

5. LORNA'S SILENCE

Belgian brothers Jean-Luc and Pierre Dar-
denne leave the suds behind for a gripping look
at a marriage of convenience that blooms into love
between a drug addict and an illegal immigrant.



6. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

Lisa Cholodenko doesn't just create fully round-
ed characters, but entire communities, and her third
film isn't just about parents and children, but about
the ties that truly bind. Bonus: it’s hilarious.

7. WINTER'S BONE

Down to the Bone director Debra Granik re-
invents the procedural for the harrowing tale of
a tenacious Ozark teenager trying to save the
family home against unbelievable odds.

8. FANTASTIC MR. FOX

This stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl
classic marks Wes Anderson’s most enjoyable
outing since Rushmore. George Clooney is per-
fection as the family man-turned-action hero.

9. GREENBERG

After the morose Margot at the Wedding, No-
ah Baumbach’s carefully observed romantic
comedy feels downright buoyant, thanks large-
ly to the effortless charm of Greta Gerwig.

10. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Neither a remake nor a sequel to the Abel Ferrara
original, Werner Herzog’s New Orleans noir stars
a gloriously unhinged Nicolas Cage as a dirty, pill-
popping detective with one last shot at redemption.



Note: Jérémie Renier stars in both Summer Hours and Lorna's Silence.

Endnote: The actual Amazon title is "Best Movies & TV of 20-
10." Though I reviewed many made-for-TV movies, specials, and
series, I didn't put together a small-screen list. Also, no box sets,
since I covered very few. Image from © Sony Pictures Classics.

Read more »

Everywhere You
Go: Black Cats














Lately, there's been a surfeit of black swans in the media, but the
black cat is timeless (I have a 16-year-old named Sterling). Here-
with, in honor of Halloween, are a few of my favorites. Incidentally,
while I realize that they appear in countless books, movies, and the
like, I chose examples where the phrase also appears in the title.



Trailer for 1941's The Black Cat with Basil Rathbone and Alan
Ladd (one among several US films to operate under that title).



Kaneto Shindo's Kuroneko plays NYC's Film Forum 10/22-28.



Serbian director Emir Kusturica's 1998 Black Cat, White Cat
(click here for my review of his Palme d'Or-winning Undergound).



Click here for more movie posters and here for my review of Broad-
cast & the Focus Group - Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age.



Click here for part two.

Endnote: British cover image for Kuroneko, AKA "Black Cat,"
from Weird Wild Realm. Expect an announcement from the Cri-
terion Collection about a domestic DVD release any day now.

1/12 update: Click here for the best photo essay ever.

Read more »

I Am an Anarchist

In sorting
through
some old
emails re-
cently, I came across a message to Mom about Von Trier's latest provocation.

After dragging my feet for a few weeks, I finally caught
Antichrist this weekend, just so I could be part of the
conversation. Not recommended as a film. It reminds
me of several that are far better, but it certainly gives
you something to talk about..should you wish to do so.

I'm amazed that my friend [redacted] would describe it
as "feminist." That's hardly the case. Charlotte Gains-
bourg, best actress winner at Cannes, plays a one-time
feminist scholar who goes nuts after the death of her son.
Willem Dafoe plays her paternalistic therapist husband.

Gainsbourg's study of feminism, particularly gynocide, doesn't
make the film "pro-woman." Sad when people fall for that trap,
though that doesn't automatically make it misogynist either. If
anything, the gig feels more misanthropic than anything else.


The best part of the film.

Atmospherically shot by the gifted Anthony Dod Mantle (Julien
-Donkey-Boy, Brothers of the Head), it's basically A-list exploita-
tion-style horror that makes Misery, Evil Dead, and the other films
from which it borrows look even better than they already are--and
without the Danish director's pesky pretensions towards "art."

Von Trier also directed Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the
Dark. His concerns remain the same, but to diminishing results
(though The Boss of It All is actually pretty funny). More signifi-
cantly, though, he mounted a version of Medea in 1988. Clearly,
women have been frightening the hell out of him for awhile now!

Endnote: Revised from original text. Image from Owl Pellets.

Read more »

Notes
from
Under
(the)
Ground:
Part Two

Click here for part one

I don't usually take notes at press screenings, because I

find it easier to watch the screen—especially when subtitl-

es are involved—than to watch, listen, and/or read while

trying to guide my pen across paper in the dark (and I'm

not about to use a lighted implement and irritate everyone

around me). That said, I make an exception every once in

awhile, and I've always found these chicken stratches al-

most as amusing as enlightening. Here are a few examples.

MADE IN USA
(Northwest Film Forum, 6/09)

Words and pictures.

"To Nick and Samuel, who raised me to respect image and

sound"..."The Moroccan war made you a bit mean"..."Now fic-

tion overtakes reality"..."I feel like I'm in a Disney movie"...frog-

gy-voiced little men, folk-singing babes in bathtubs...the magnifi-

cent reds of La Chinoise, Pierrot le Fou, and the Technicolor mu-

sicals of Vincente Minnelli..."In 22 years, I'll be 26"...Marianne

Faithfull, "As Tears Go By"...tomato-red blood and no points of

entry; better yet, the blood matches the socks...Paula, Richard,

Typhus, and Doris Mizoguchi...jet airliner whooshes and loud

telephone rings...Paul Widmark...Jean-Pierre Léaud as Donald

[Siegel]..."Fascism must pass like miniskirts and rock & roll...

Frank Sinatra, Serge Gainsbourg, and [indistinguishable].

Click here for full review.



A TOWN CALLED PANIC
(Seven Gables, 1/10)

Imagery and comparisons.

Animated opening...birth-

day...Gumby and Pokey,

Mr. Bill, Bob the Builder...

Farmer Steven...bricks, 50

million bricks...stolen walls...

inflatable [furniture]...reckless...cell phones...

travel through the Earth's Core to the other side...

enslaved by scientists...giant food...barracudas, sea

creatures, pearl fountain, swordfish saws...one year later.

Click here for full review. Opens at the Varsity on 1/22.



SAINT JOHN OF LAS VEGAS

(Seven Gables, 1/10)

"Dante's Inferno" goes to Vegas.

Hue Rhodes [director]...Stanley Tucci and Spike Lee

[producers]...New Mexico...convenience store framing

device...John (Steve Buscemi, character actor par excel-

lence)...slicked-back hair, long sideburns...down on his luck...

filing claims at an insurance company...Peter Dinklage, boss...

Virgil (Romany Malco), co-worker, world's worst travel com-

panion...fraud...Jill (Sarah Silverman), smiley faces...Danny

Trejo..."When a cross-dressing skinhead don't rape you,

just take your smokes. Don't ask why"...Tasty Delight,

stripper...Tim Blake Nelson, nudist militia...Hell is Ve-

gas...disorienting, surrealistic..."I think I lost my eye-

brows, but that was the best smoke I ever had."

Opens in Seattle on 2/19 at the Metro.

THE GHOST WRITER
(Pacific Place, 2/10)

Polanski goes Hitchcock.

Accident or suicide...busy, robust soundtrack [Alexandre Des-
plat]...Timothy Hutton, Jim Belushi...Adam Lang [Pierce Bros-
nan]...secret torture...flight...modernist house, looks like a pri-
son...Ruth (Olivia Williams), Kim Cattrall as assistant..."Bril-
liant in a horrible sort of way...all the words are there, but
in the wrong order"...Brits in the U.S...wind...sweeping
leaves..."Got into politics out of love"...Yale or Cam-
bridge..."This place is Shangri-La in reverse."



Click here for the full review.

Endnote: Images from Port and The Auteurs.

Read more »

Movies
for
Music
Lovers:
2009
Edition

Click here
for the
2008
edition

I'm always pleased when my top 10 doesn't look like anybody else's, but I'd never set out to create something unique just to stand out from the crowd. Not unless my heart was really in it.

Last year, it was all about the re-release of Jerzy Skolimowski's long-lost Deep End (and this year, the reissue of two forgotten Sylvester albums from the early-1970s top my music list).

But not all years are created equal. In 2006, I gave pride of place
to 1969's Army of Shadows, indicating that the year had nothing
better to offer—not that I don't stand by Jean-Pierre Melville's
amazing movie—but I really would prefer to celebrate the new.

The minute Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker ended, I knew I'd
found my #1, even though there were still six months left in the
year. As it turns out, dozens—if not hundreds—of film critics felt
exactly the same way. So be it. It's my number one with a bullet.

For some, the picture pro-
vided their first exposure
to Bigelow (Near Dark) and
Jeremy Renner (North
Country), which is great—
better late than never—but
I've been pulling for these
underdogs for years. Same for Anthony Mackie, who made my list
three year ago with Half Nelson. He's a fine actor who deserves
more leading roles of his own (and also rates a mention for his
charismatic portrayal of rapper Tupac Shakur in Notorious).

Note: The links lead to my Amazon, SIFF, Siffblog, and Video Librarian reviews.

The Tops:
1. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
2. Il Divo (Paulo Sorrentino)
3. Precious (Lee Daniels)
4. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
5. Public Enemies (Michael Mann)
6. Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
7. District 9 (Neill Blomkamp)
8. Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)
9. Hunger (Steve McQueen)
10. Bright Star (Jane Campion)



Runners-up:
11. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
12. Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
13. Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
14. Goodbye, Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
15. The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
16. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
17. Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín)
18. Medicine for Melancholy (Barry Jenkins)
19. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas)
20. Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke)

Note: I wish so many critics
didn't find it necessary to dis-
parage Anderson's previous ef-
fort, The Darjeeling Limited, in
order to praise Fantastic Mr.
Fox. Couldn't Fox be appreciated
on its own merits? Further, I
prefer Darjeeling to his debut, Bottle Rocket, among Martin Scorsese's favorite films of the '00s. (For once, I disagree with the director. And I'd also like to see more love for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou).

Second Runners-up:
21. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
22. A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
23. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
24. Black Dynamite (Scott Sanders)
25. Tie: Big Fan (Robert Seigel) and The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
26. The Silence of Lorna* (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
27. Humpday (Lynn Shelton)
28. Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski)
29. Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
30. The Merry Gentleman (Michael Keaton)

* Also known as Lorna's Silence. Either way: she isn't very talkative.



Note: For my money, A Serious Man and The Informant! are
the year's saddest comedies. While watching both, I laughed. But
afterwards, I wanted to cry. As for The Wrestler and Big Fan, Ro-
bert Seigel penned the pair. And Roy Andersson's morbidly hilar-
ious You, the Living misses my top 30 only because I saw it in '08.

Top Documentaries:
1. Stranded (Gonzalo Arijón)
2. Soul Power (Jeffrey Levy-Hinte)
3. The September Issue (C.J. Cutler)
4. Tyson (James Toback)
5. Audience of One (Michael Jacobs)
6. The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins (Pietra Brettkelly)
7. RiP! A Remix Manifesto (Brett Gaylor)
8. Invisible Girlfriend (David Redmon and Ashley Sabin)
9. Food, Inc. (Robert Kenner)
10. The Queen and I (Nahid Persson)

Top Rediscoveries:
1. Skidoo (Otto Preminger)
2. Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda)
3. Model Shop (Jacques Demy)
4. Lola Montès (Max Ophüls)
5. Dillinger Is Dead (Marco Ferreri)
6. Funeral Parade of Ros-
es (Toshio Matsumoto)
7. Phase IV (Saul Bass)
8. The Rain People (Francis Ford Coppola)
9. So Long at the Fair (Terence Fisher)
10. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (Paul Mazursky)

Note: Most of these titles screened as part of the Northwest Film
Forum's year-long '69 series. Skidoo is wacked-out, hippie-dippy fun
with a Harry Nilsson score and an all-star cast. The music is available,
the movie is not. To quote Adam Sekuler, "Skidoo: you gotta be there!"



Top DVDs:
1. Magnificent Obsession - Criterion
Collection (Douglas Sirk/John M. Stahl)
2. Philippe Garrel x 2: I Can No Longer
Hear the Guitar/Emergency Kisses
3. Made in USA (Jean-Luc Godard)
4. The Exiles (Kent Mckenzie)
5. Careful (Guy Maddin)

Note: I only list DVDs with extras that enhance the viewing ex-
perience in some way. Further, I only list those that I either pur-
chased or reviewed, hence no AK 100: 25 Films by Kurosawa,
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Qual du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Gau-
mont Treasures, Zabriskie Point, The Exterminating Angel,
or The Samuel Fuller Film Collection, all of which appear
on Dennis Lim's list for The Los Angeles Times.

Worthy of attention
(in alphabetical order):
(500) Days of Summer, Ad-
ventureland, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Broken Embraces, Ché, Coco before Chanel, Cold Souls, The Country Teacher, Duplicity, An Education, Endgame, The Firm Land, The House of the
Devil, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus*, The Imma-
culate Conception of Little Dizzle, Inglourious Basterds, Lem-
on Tree, Me and Orson Welles, The Messenger, The Missing Person, Moon, Séraphine, A Single Man, State of Play, Stel-
la, Sunshine Cleaning, Telstar, Trucker, and Two Lovers.

* Opens at the Metro Cinemas on 1/8/10.

Missed (or haven't seen yet): The Beaches of Agnes, Bron-
son, Coraline, The Cove, Crazy Heart, The Damned United, The
English Surgeon, Everlasting Moments, I'm Gonna Explode, Julia,
Liverpool, The Maid, Next Day Air, Night and Day, Of Time and
the City, Passing Strange, Police, Adjective, Pontypool, Ponyo,
The Road, Still Walking, Somers Town, Sugar, Tetro, Three
Monkeys, Tulpan, Unmade Beds, Up, Whip It!, The
White Ribbon, and World's Greatest Dad.

Note: I'll be seeing The Beaches of Agnes, Cra-
zy Heart, Julia, and Passing Strange shortly.



Endnote: Cross-posted at Facebook and Siffblog.
Images from Film Reference, Action Movie Reviews,
Way of the West, Channel 4, and The Guardian.

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